If you're viewing this article through your internet browser

, like Internet Explorer, you'd notice an icon on your toolbox which is labeled as "Favorites." If you're using Mozilla Firefox, a similar icon will be named "Bookmarks."

How does it work? Well, if you like this article and you'd want to save it for future reference, you can simply "add" this web page via the "Favorites" or "Bookmarks" feature we have just mentioned.

This process is called "bookmarking," because, just you'd bookmark particular pages in a book, you can bookmark particular web pages on the internet.

However, such bookmarks will be saved on your PC. If you'd reformat your system, you'd lose those bookmarked web pages.

Enter Social Bookmarking Sites

With the advent of Web 2.0 and the shift in online engineering philosophy to creating websites that serve as virtual tools for internet users, bookmarking has evolved into a feature carried by your PC to a feature provided by specific websites you visit.

These websites are called social bookmarking sites. Basically, they are meant to help you bookmark the web pages you like, only, such bookmarks will be saved on the websites themselves instead of your hard drive.

Why the inclusion of the word "social?"

Alas, this is the most important aspect of the equation for your internet marketing needs. Social bookmarking sites are of a "social" nature because they allow their users to share their lists of bookmarked web pages. Furthermore, these bookmarked web pages are arranged according to categories. Hence, if a user is looking for good web pages about Cloverfield, Dark Knight, and other upcoming Hollywood movies, he can simply look at the websites that people have bookmarked under categories like Entertainment. Some social bookmarkting sites use tags, instead, which are more specific and which, if used properly, can drive more targeted traffic to bookmarked web pages.

The Marketing Significance Of Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is a new way of delivering content to online users. Unlike search engines which rely on robotic, non-discerning spiders to fetch the content that users need, social bookmarking sites rely on actual human experience to share web pages to people who may be looking for them.

Are the web pages really, really, really significant to a particular topic, and are not merely simulated to appear significant to a mechanical eye?

Do the web pages offer quality content?

Do the web pages offer up-to-the-minute information on the subject they are discussing?

These are questions that social bookmarkers can answer for subsequent visitors to a particular website. By bookmarking a site, people will get the impression that the same is worthy to be remembered when it comes to the subject it is catering to.

Internet users are beginning to place more trust on social bookmarking websites. If they see your website bookmarked under a particular category or tag, then it will immediately gain a degree of credibility that can help your conversion efforts.

More importantly, you have more chances of exposing your website to more people via social bookmarking. You won't have to place your fate on the hands of search engine spiders to achieve a top 10 position in relevant search engine results. You just have to win the enjoyment and praise of enough social bookmarkers so that they'd bookmark your website for all the world to see.

Show Me The Yellow Brick Road

Currently, there are hundreds of social bookmarking sites available for your benefit, and more similar websites are being uploaded each and every day it is now your chance to increase your traffic the easy way.

About the author

Samantha Milner is a well-known Internet Marketing expert and the owner of DSM Publishing: